Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced resumption of the much-awaited direct flight between London and Ahmedabad. The service will start from December 15, 2015. He announced this in front of over 60,000 people who had gathered at the Wembley Stadium to honour the Indian PM, who was on a three-day visit to the UK. The Wembley extravaganza was on the second day of his visit on 13th December. The direct flight between the two cities was stopped seven years ago.
The massive crowd at the stadium went in raptures as soon as the PM made the direct flight announcement and gave him a thunderous applause. The Prime Minister gave the credit for the resumption of the flight to CB Patel (our editor) for his relentless campaign for the service.
Modi spoke for 1 hour and 20 minutes at Wembley. Before his speech, he was given a rousing welcome by British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha, who was clad in a beautiful red Indian sari. A grand Indian cultural programme was organised in honour of PM Modi which lasted for 2 hours.
Modi began his speech at 5.35pm (London time) and ended it at 6.55pm. In his speech he mentioned about the problems faced by the Indian diaspora in UK as well as other major issues faced by the world today.
Interestingly, Modi got the maximum applause when he announced the resumption of the direct flight between Ahmedabad and London, which had not seen the light of the day for the last seven years.
However, before he talked about the flight, the Prime Minister touched upon the OCI, PIO and Visa issues. He acknowledged that these issues were brought to his notice during his meetings in London and he has notified it to the departments concerned. (A memorandum by Asian Voice/Gujarat Samachar was earlier presented to the PM).
Thereafter he spoke in detail about the direct flight. He said he had visited London in 2003. At that time he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. The Indian diaspora in UK had made a representation to him regarding the direct flight service between Ahmedabad and London. He represented the matter to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Central Government responded to it positively. And he was overjoyed that the direct flight service took off. This was the first time such a direct flight between the two cities was started. But then all of a sudden the service stopped when the UPA Government came to power. Modi said he does not want to get into – why the service stopped, who stopped it, the reasons behind it. But he said he is now announcing the resumption of the direct flight between the two cities from December 15 this year. The overjoyed crowd lauded Modi with a grand ovation.
Giving more details about how he arrived at the decision to resume the direct flight service, he said once the direct flight service stopped, (for which he had made genuine efforts to start it in 2003), the visiting Gujaratis from UK used to call on him with the representations to resume the flight. He jokingly said that they used to catch hold of his neck to do something in this connection.
Modi said: “Whenever my friend Shri CB Patel used to visit Gujarat, even when I was in Delhi, he used to 'catch hold of my neck' on this matter, and it is because of him, today I am announcing the resumption of the direct flight between London and Ahmedabad.”
However, before he announced the news of the direct flight service, Modi kept the crowd on tenterhooks. When he took the name of Shri CB Patel, he also mentioned that Shri CB Patel used to 'catch hold of his neck' on this matter. He said as a result, from December 15 onwards he has decided to....... and then he stopped. The crowd got anxious. They didn't know what was coming. What the announcement was. And then again he repeated the same line and paused without finishing the sentence. The crowd was stumped by Modi's crowd-pulling tactics. They didn't know how to react and were getting impatient with every passing second. But then the smiling Modi did not keep them waiting any more and immediately announced the resumption of the flight service, much to the delight of the massive crowd present at the Wembley Stadium.
For the last six years from 2009-2015, Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar and CB Patel had been making valiant efforts to resume the flight service, but to no avail. But Prime Minister Modi had been witness to each and every effort made by CB Patel and acknowledged it in front of the public at Wembley Stadium. CB Patel happened to be the only alive Indian whose name got a mention in Modi's speech.
Box item
Stopover at Mumbai, but no change of aircraft
Asian Voice talked to Paula Chattaraj, Officer- PR & Corporate Sales, Air India, UK, for more details on the flight service. Chattaraj said it's a direct flight with stopover at Mumbai, but there won't be any change of aircraft. The official said AI 130 London to Ahmedabad / AI 131 Ahmedabad to London are direct flights. The stopover will be of 90 minutes on either direction at Mumbai with no change of aircraft. The fares will depend on market conditions and seasonality, added the official.
